Defence chiefs quizzed on Fahy affair

After initially denying any wrong doing in the Fahy affair, Defence Force chiefs have had to answer questions by a senate estimates committee.

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KERRY O'BRIEN: It's now nearly three weeks since Lieutenant Commander Robyn Fahy broke a long silence with startling accusations about bullying and brutal treatment in the Navy spanning two decades. Robyn Fahy, as you'll recall from our earlier stories, was a highly-performed officer whose career was cut short when she was sacked from her job at the Stirling Naval Base near Perth in October 2000. Since then, with the exception of a leaked internal message to Navy staff, and two written statements to this program, Defence chiefs have declined to respond publicly to the allegations. The leaked document claimed the Navy was doing everything it could to resolve the Fahy case, and suggested that this program's revelations were a "beat-up". Today, the Defence chiefs did front publicly at a Senate Estimates Committee in Canberra, where they faced a number of pointed questions about the affair. Mark Bannerman reports.

MARK BANNERMAN, REPORTER: From Iraq to Afghanistan, in the Solomons and East Timor, Australia's Defence Forces are stretched to the limit. The last thing the top brass needs right now is a caustic personnel problem involving allegations of abuse and bastardisation from a serving officer. But that's exactly what they are confronting.

SENATOR MARK BISHOP, OPPOSITION SPOKESMAN FOR DEFENCE PERSONNEL: The allegation is that she was regularly assaulted, verbally and physically by fellow cadets and seniors in her time of training.

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER ROBYN FAHY: And when I walked towards the Governer-General to receive my award, I got spat on. So by the time I reached him, I actually had saliva on my uniform.

VICE-ADMIRAL RUSS SHALDERS, CHIEF OF NAVY: Senator, I can tell you that there is no record at the Defence Force Academy of any complaint having been made by Lieutenant Commander Fahy.

MARK BANNERMAN: After weeks of silence on this, today the Chief of Defence, Angus Houston and his Chief of Navy, Russ Shalders, were forced to answer questions about Robyn Fahy. Their inquisitors, members of the powerful Senate committee on foreign affairs and defence. And from the start, there was one very simple question.

SENATOR MARK BISHOP: Why has Defence never fully investigated Commander Fahy's allegations of assault whilst she was in the Defence Force Academy?

AIR MARSHAL ANGUS HOUSTON, CHIEF OF DEFENCE: One of the things that concerns me about the way these things are played out in the media is the lack of natural justice that applies to some of the individuals that are named.

MARK BANNERMAN: Chief of Navy, though, was less cautious, choosing to open his remarks with an attack on the media.

VICE-ADMIRAL RUSH SHALDERS: I fully agree with you that a lot of the reporting around this particular case has been not only colourful, but also sensationalist. You didn't use the word, but I would use the word 'unbalanced' in the reporting of this case.

MARK BANNERMAN: Whatever the allegations of bias might be, the claims of Robyn Fahy are open for testing. Labor Senator Mark Bishop, for one, wanted to know what the Navy had done to investigate them. In particular, the allegation that on her graduation day, this top performing trainee officer had been spat upon.

SENATOR MARK BISHOP: Her fellow cadets spat on her to the extent that she had saliva dripping from her body as she received her award. It's just unacceptable to have people around the world in the uniforms that a lot of people in this room wear, under fire and dying and allegations are made that our uniforms are spat upon and there is no public response.

VICE-ADMIRAL RUSS SHALDERS: There is no record at the Defence Force Academy. There is no record of such a complaint being made through the Defence Equity line.

MARK BANNERMAN: If Vice-Admiral Shalders thought that was the end of the matter, though, he was wrong.

SENATOR MARK BISHOP: I don't really care whether someone's made a complaint to the hotline.

VICE-ADMIRAL RUSS SHALDERS: Senator, you've got one person's point of view against a number of other persons' points of view.

SENATOR MARK BISHOP: What inquiry have you conducted?

MARK BANNERMAN: At this point, other members of the committee broke in and an argument began about the nature of the questioning.

SENATOR: He's halfway through an answer.

MARK BANNERMAN: But with that resolved, the same question was put, and this was the answer.

VICE-ADMIRAL RUSS SHALDERS: There has been no formal inquiry as a result of Lieutenant Commander Fahy's allegations on 'The 7.30 Report'.

MARK BANNERMAN: Of course, all this does not get to the heart of the Robyn Fahy story. The major question remains - why, in 2000, was she removed from her job as executive officer at the Stirling Naval Base? What we do know is that in part, Navy acted as a result of a flawed referral from Navy doctor, Douglas McKenzie. Today, though, the Navy was not relying on his diagnosis, but the judgment of the doctor Robyn Fahy was referred to - consulting psychiatrist, Dr Sid Srna.

VICE-ADMIRAL RUSS SHALDERS: At the time of Lieutenant Commander Fahy's removal from her position as executive officer, she had been diagnosed by a civilian psychiatrist as being manic and bipolar. As a result of that diagnosis, she was removed from her position.

TOM FAHY, FATHER: That afternoon, she saw the first civilian psychiatrist which we had organised and he saw absolutely no sign of any psychological illness whatsoever.

MARK BANNERMAN: So who is Dr Srna? Well we have no picture of him, just this letter damning Robyn Fahy and her health situation. In it, he claims she has a bipolar mood disorder requiring urgent treatment. Today, though, we found out something else about this doctor's professional history.

SENATOR MARK BISHOP: Have you been advised that Dr Srna was the subject of, and was found guilty by the Medical Board of Western Australia as a result of gross carelessness in the assessment and management of a patient in the late 1990s, two years before he saw Robyn Fahy? Have you been advised of that?

VICE-ADMIRAL RUSS SHALDERS: No, Senator.

MARK BANNERMAN: In fact, the 7.30 Report can confirm that Dr Srna was the subject of a complaint in the West Australian Medical Board. Although the court said this was a one-off incident, it also is true that after appeal, he was found guilty of gross carelessness in the assessment and management of a patient and fined $10,000. In the Robyn Fahy case, the Navy keeps saying it's a complex matter. Right now, the ADF has committed itself to a mediation process. It will be interesting to see the weight today's startling revelations are given when discussions begin. It will also be a major test of the Defence Force's reformed justice system.

KERRY O'BRIEN: We did request today an interview with the Defence Minister, Brendan Nelson, and the consulting psychiatrist mentioned in the story, Dr Sid Srna. Both declined. Mark Bannerman with that report.